Page 17 of Discovery of the Vampire
Fuck me. She felt it, too.
I dropped my hands from her shoulders and took two stumbling steps backward until I was out of her reach. Clenching my jaw and tightening my hands into fists at my sides, I held onto my control by a tiny, thin thread. What the hell was happening to me? I'd never lost it like this, not even as a newly turned vampire.
"Please." She followed me, closing the distance between us again, and I groaned aloud.
If she only knew what she was fucking doing to me. Then again, maybe she did. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Brogan. I don't have anyone else to turn to."
The desperate edge in her voice shredded what little resistance I had left.
7
BROGAN
The streetlight cast shadows across Esme's face, accentuating the hollows beneath her eyes and cheeks. It made her look like something out of a dream as she stared up at me with pleading dark eyes and parted red lips, her breath ghosting from between them in the cold night air. I moved without thinking, forgetting to watch my speed, to act human. Grabbing her wrist, I pulled her close, careful not to hurt her in my fervor as I cupped the back of her head with my free hand and took her mouth with mine.
I could so easily crush her skull in my palm if I forgot myself.
She gasped in surprise and I used that to my advantage, sweeping my tongue into her mouth and groaning aloud at her taste.God. Hertaste. I’d dreamt about this moment, but the reality was so much fucking better than anything my mind could conjure up.
The warmth of her body seeped through my thin Hawaiian shirt, a stark contrast to the sudden gust of cool winter wind that whipped between the buildings lining the street. I felt her heart pound against mine, heard the strong beats and the way her blood rushed through her veins. Could smell the sweet, earthy musk of her rising desire. My fingers tangled in her hair as my other arm slid around her waist and pulled her tighter against me so I could grind my hardened length against her softness. Fucking hell, she felt so fucking good. The world around us blurred and I could only feel. Only smell. Only taste the perfection in my arms.
Impure thoughts lead to damnation…
The Elder's voice suddenly echoed through my head and I stilled, but only for a second before I snarled against her sweet mouth, shoving that shit away and crushing her in my arms, refusing to give her up.
Esme's fingers threaded through the hair at my nape, and a moan escaped her throat. I froze as that little sound snapped me out of the haze of lust that consumed me and flung me back into the horrors of my childhood.
How was it that even as a vampire who'd lived more than a century longer than I should have, the cult's teachings still haunted me—women as temptresses, physical pleasure as sin, the commandment to worship only their God. Those beliefs had been beaten into me since childhood and refused to fucking fade, clinging to my consciousness like a blood stain I couldn't wash away. Even after decades of freedom, they lingered beneath my skin. And no matter how I tried to shove them down and bury them deep where they couldn't touch me anymore, they still echoed inside my skull and crawled beneath my skin like a parasite.
I broke away, her name tearing from my throat like a prayer, begging her to save me. "Esme?—"
My world spun in a crazy maelstrom of sound and color, and I desperately hung onto her, trying to steady myself, my eyes focused on her sweet mouth. Raising one shaking hand, I ran my thumb along the edge of her lower lip where her lipstick had smeared, using her to ground myself.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Her worried eyes searched mine.
The body is a temple. Keep it pure. Desire leads to corruption."I'm..."Damaged. Broken. Unworthy. A fucking vampire who wants to feed from you as much as I want to fuck you. And I don't know that I'll be able to stop myself from doing either.
"You're what?" She touched my face, and I flinched.
Physical contact between males and females is forbidden.
My eyes darted around the dark street as my mind tried to reconcile the voices in my head with where I was.
I shouldn't be here. I shouldn’t be doing this.
In a last, desperate attempt to talk some sense into her…into us both…I bared my fangs with a hiss. "Why aren't you fucking scared of me?"
Her eyes dropped to my mouth before rising slowly back to mine with a glimmer of satisfaction that she’d been right about me. "Do I need to be?" she retorted softly.
No. No, she didn't need to be. I'd never hurt her. I didn't think I could, even if I wanted to. With something akin to desperation, I stared hard into those dark eyes that bared her entire soul to me.
"I don't know how to do this," I confessed as the voices screamed my damnation in my ears, my voice only slightly louder than a whisper. "They taught us that wanting someone was wrong. That feeling pleasure was a sin." The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “I still hear them, Esme. And they won’t stop. Why won’t they stop? Is it because they’re right?”
Little lines appeared between her brows. "What are you talking about? They who?"
I dropped my head and stared at the dirty sidewalk between our feet, my hands falling away from her as the memories I'd tried so hard to bury clawed their way to the surface. My mouth opened and words poured out, my mind caught up in the past.
